By
Jane Perrone.
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I blabber on about houseplants every week on On The Ledge, but I thought it was about time I gave you a room-by-room account of the houseplants I own. I start this week with the kitchen, where I have more than 25 plants on the go at the moment.

90 episodes available.
A new episode about every
6 days
averaging 34 mins duration
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I am joined by epiphytic cactus expert Mark Preston to talk about how to take care of Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving cacti, aka Schlumbergera and Rhipsalidopsis. And I answer a question about baby spider plants.

I talk to Scott Cain of Instagram accounts @tropicaloco and @boyswithplants about his houseplant collection, his new book and what it’s like keeping a whole forest of foliage plants alive on an Australian balcony. And I answer a question about a Monstera with dodgy leaves.

Hoyas are shooting up the popularity charts, and so they should: these climbing and trailing vines have lovely foliage and flowers that are otherworldy and sometimes heavenly scented. Doug Chamberlain of Vermont Hoyas joins me to discuss his collection, his favourite species and how to care for these enchanting plants.…

ZZ plant or Zamioculcas zamiifolia? Botanical Latin can seem like a confusing alphabet soup that’s hard to say and even harder to figure out. But I love learning about the Latin names of houseplants, because there’s always something to learn about the history of the plant, who brought it into cultivation and what it looks like. With the help of ...…

Michael Perry aka Mr Plant Geek joins me to share some of his insights into the houseplant scene in China, Japan and Thailand, from how much you’d pay for a 6ft Adenium in Thailand to how the Chinese are marketing houseplants to children. Plus I answer a jaw-dropping question from a listener who has a peace lily that’s anything but peaceful… Vi ...…

One of the boons of indoor gardening is that this hobby really doesn’t necessitate a lot of kit: a watering can, some pots and some potting mix will get you started. But as your plant obsession grows, there are some gadgets that will help to keep your leafy charges happy and help you deal with routine maintenance. In this episode I highlight so ...…

We’ve all been there: the moment when that must-have houseplant leaps off the shelf and into your basket (real or virtual) and you have absolutely no idea how you are going to fit it into your home. In this episode I hear from a couple of listeners - Ehren Wessel and Letty Reynaldo - about their plant addictions, and I chat to hoarding expert J ...…

As it’s the final episode of the year, I thought I’d have some fun and discuss some of the houseplants that embody the Pantone colour of the year for 2019, ‘living coral’; plus I offer up some festive houseplant care tips and talk about what’s coming up in 2019 on the podcast. Visit janeperrone.com for full show notes.…

Whether you’re keeping records of houseplants’ growth or showing them off on social media, taking photographs indoors can be tricky. I speak to three plant photographers to find out their top tips on lighting, framing and focusing your shot - and learn about some simple, inexpensive pieces of kit that can help you up your game. Plus - I answer ...…

You’ve read the headlines, but do houseplants really clean the air in your house? A Nasa study from decades ago is the oft-cited authority on the subject, but surely there must be some more recent research into the topic? Thankfully, the answer is yes. Curtis Gubb is in the final year of a PhD at the University of Birmingham. He’s working on a ...…

Professional aquascaper George Farmer turned his hobby into a successful career, becoming one of the stars of the aquarium scene. I visited his home in Cambridgeshire to find out where it all began, get some tips on how to get started with your first underwater landscape, and how his love of aquascaping helped him deal with PTSD in the wake of ...…

I recently visited the Netherlands as a guest of The Joy of Plants; last week’s episode covered my trip to the Flora Holland show, and this week I’m talking about the plants I saw at the three nurseries we visited the following day - Amstel BV, Ubink and Vireo. James Wong was there too so we got to geek out over houseplants together - fun! Visi ...…

I recently visited the Netherlands as a guest of The Joy of Plants; it was an informative and fun trip, and a brilliant opportunity to understand the fascinating world of Dutch ornamental plant production. This week I’m talking about the plants I saw at the Flora Holland trade show during day one of the visit - next week I’ll cover the greenhou ...…

Houseplants are all weird and wonderful, but there are some that outdo the rest for their ability to surprise us. Dr Chris Thorogood is a botanist at Oxford Botanic Garden with a clever sideline in painting brilliant pictures of the plants he loves and studies: his new book, Weird Plants, is a brilliant book for anyone who wants to delve a bit ...…

I normally record On The ledge in my pyjamas with an unwashed face and a mug of tea at ten o’clock at night, so last Friday it was rather a novelty to be at the RHS halls in London, it’s rather a fully dressed and mostly clean, with a cocktail in my hand, recording an episode of On The Ledge in front of a live audience. My guests were Alys Fowl ...…

If you’ve listened to episode after episode of me talking about my plants, and have wondered exactly what my plant collection looks like, now is your chance. (I did do a kitchen houseplant tour back in episode 38 but lots of plants have been moved since then…) In this episode I offer up a tour of my kitchen and half of my sun room plants, and y ...…

It’s the time of year when we do the houseplant shuffle - that desperate effort to get all the houseplants safely inside before they are ripped apart by winter winds or rendered crinkly with an overnight frost. In this episode I demonstrate how I get a plant ready to come inside, and talk to Norwegian nursery owner and houseplant collector Tomm ...…

The first challenge with this plant is mastering its Latin name! The genus Epiphyllum belongs to the forest or orchid cacti, named for their orchid-like stems. Anguliger means ‘angle bearing’ and if you’ve seen the flattened stems of this plant you’ll know why! Its striking zigzag or ric rac patterns make E. anguliger a popular feature on Insta ...…

Sedum morganianum was a bit of a botanical mystery until ten years ago. No one really knew where it grew in the wild, although it was believed to live in Veracruz in Mexico. Then a couple of botanists stumbled across some specimens growing in a ravine near Coatepec in Veracruz, Mexico. Read the full tale - including how the plant was first foun ...…

As the Latin name suggests, in its native Brazil this tiny Peperomia grows by creeping around on the ground and along tree bark. That said, it grows brilliantly as a trailing pot plant, and is so diminutive that it’s perfect for keeping ‘on the ledge’. It’s a member of the pepper family, so you may seen this sold as ‘trailing pepper plant’. If ...…

The flame violet holds its own among any variegated plant you can name, and yet for some reason they are not as popular as they should be! These members of the Gesneriad clan grow in central America where they tend to romp around at ground level, but they also make brilliant trailing plants. The ‘cupreata’ bit means coppery, reflecting the meta ...…

String of hearts, hearts entangled, chain of hearts … there are so many common names for this popular trailing plant. It’s simple to grow, widely available and endlessly fascinating. Visit janeperrone.com for full show notes.

This plant grows in the Himalayan region and is an epiphyte, dangling from trees like green furry tinsel. Mine hasn’t flowered yet, but I am looking forward to the clusters of starry white flowers that are reputedly lemon-scented. Visit janeperrone.com for full show notes.

You’ve gathered an awesome collection of houseplants, learning how to care for each and every one (with a few casualties along the way!) but what next? Propagation - the art and science of making more plants from the ones you already have - is a great way of getting to know your plants better, bulking up your collection and providing gifts for ...…

Phalaenopsis orchids are the most ubiquitous of flowering houseplants: love them or hate them, you can’t escape their good qualities, from their ability to survive in the home to the longlasting flowers. In this episode I gather the best care tips for your moth orchids, decode all the Phalaenopsis jargon and find out whether you really do need ...…

Darryl Cheng - timelapse photographer extraordinaire, Instagram maven and houseplant doctor - is my guest this week. We discuss everything from why instructions to grow a plant in ‘bright indirect light’ doesn’t really help houseplant growers to the dangers of anthropomorphising plants. Follow Darryl on Instagram and Twitter and support his Pat ...…

Palms are one of the most enduringly popular houseplants: stars of the Victorian glasshouse, darlings of the art deco hotel dining room and now denizens of terrariums and terraces alike. This week's episode looks at some of the most commonly available palms to grow as houseplants, finds out how to look after them, and investigates some of the m ...…

'Campfire' ... 'Spiced Curry' ... 'Alabama Sunset' ... 'Dipt in Wine' ... no, I am not reminiscing about my summer holiday, I am of course talking about varieties of the fantastic plant that is the Coleus. I was once rather dismissive of these plants, but in recent years I've come to realise how wrong I was. Dr Hessayon calls Coleus 'the poor m ...…

Leslie Halleck's book Gardening Under Lights (published by Timber Press) is a really welcome book for those of us who haven't fully dipped our toes into the confusing world of artificial light for our plants. In this episode, I find out about what kind of light houseplants need, investigate the pros and cons of the difference types from LECs to ...…

Colin Walker has been growing succulents for 50 years, and he just happens to be the president of the British Cactus and Succulent Society. I interviewed him this week to find out about his two specialisms, Aloes and Agaves, and also found out about his penchant for putting succulents in odd containers such as teapots - and why cat litter can h ...…

Ferns. Love them, hate them, want them to go away and stop taunting you with their crispy leaves? This week I am attempting to give serial fern killers hope by discussing some tips and tricks to keep ferns happy, interviewing someone who's got their fern game sorted, and naming some of the species I find just that bit easier to keep alive. Visi ...…

I've come to a bit of a standstill this week: I don't know if it's the heatwave the UK has been going through, the pressure of making a weekly podcast or England's exit from the World Cup, but it's left me feeling rather weary. So I thought I'd dedicate this episode to some really quick and easy projects for indoor growers that take two to five ...…

I had so much fun and fascinating stuff to chat about with expert botanist and houseplant maverick James Wong that I am bringing you another chunk of our chat this week. If you haven't yet listened to part one of my visit to James Wong's flat, please do so before you click play on this. The show notes at janeperrone.com will fill you in on all ...…

British-Malaysian botanist James Wong is sparking a one-man houseplant revolution. With no outside space to garden, for the last 18 months James has been focusing all his horticultural energies into many fascinating plant experiments inside his small London flat. If you follow James on social media where he's @botanygeek, you can't fail to have ...…

Regular listeners to On The Ledge podcast will have heard me waffle on many times about how much I love Streptocarpus. The name may be easily confused with a throat infection (it actually refers to the plant's twisted seedpod) but this genus is an under-appreciated gem of the houseplant world. It's a member of a wider family called the Gesneria ...…

Behind an unassuming bungalow near Poole in Dorset, Mike Clifford's garden may measure up to just 65ft long, but it's absolutely packed full of wonderful plants, both in greenhouses and outside. Mike - @mikesrareplants on Twitter - is a huge fan of all kinds of tropical plants, but he's got a particular penchant for big-leaved plants such as th ...…

Buying plants online is ridiculously easy - a few clicks and some fancy foliage plant or flowery specimen is on its way to you in the post. But it's a process that's fraught with potential problems. I recently did an interview for the BBC* about problems with online garden centres, but it was such a short chat that I really didn't get the chanc ...…

This week's episode sounds a little bit different - as it's half term and I have a relative staying who is sleeping in my office where I usually record the podcast, I headed out to the potting shed for the intro and Q&A. I hope you enjoy the early morning background noise of birds singing! Matthew Biggs (@plantmadman on Twitter) is a legendary ...…

The Chelsea flower show is the world's most famous gardening event, but houseplants are starting to make big inroads into this fixture in the horticultural calendar. I visited the show to check out the indoor gardening displays in the Great Pavilion, and met up with friend of the show Alys Fowler. Here's a summary of all my Chelsea interviews: ...…

Whether you're a hashtag natural or tend to get your #Monsteramonday mixed up with #philodendronfriday, Instagram is a bit of a jungle for houseplant lovers: fun to negotiate but sometimes rather confusing. I talk to Kimberley Aston aka @kingstreetjungle, who's a houseplant lover of the Instagram generation, and one of the faces behind smash hi ...…

One of the best ways of learning how to care about your houseplants is to find out more about how they live in their native habitats. If you can't go and visit them in the wild, a trip to a botanic garden such as Kew in London is the next best thing. The Temperate House at Kew is a huge Victorian glasshouse that's home to thousands of plants fr ...…

One of the many satisfying things about succulents is just how easy they are to propagate: this week I take a look at how to propagate succulents from existing plant material, aka cuttings (take a listen back to On The Ledge episode 36 for information on sowing from seed). Most succulents can be propagated from cuttings, but it's useful to know ...…

So, you've ended up with a home full of houseplants, but how do you display them to make the most of their best features? I talk to North London-based interior designer and houseplant enthusiast Emilie Fournet about statement plants, why the fiddle leaf fig is the plant of the moment, how to match pots with plants, and when it's absolutely OK t ...…

When Alice Vincent asked me to take part in a panel discussion at the Garden Museum about houseplant trends past, present and future, I couldn't have been more excited, and when I heard my fellow speaker was Catherine Horwood I nearly bit her hand off. This week you can hear the discussion that took place.…

It all started with a single fiddle leaf fig. Now Summer Rayne Oakes has hundreds of houseplants in her Brooklyn apartment, plus a chicken. Yes a chicken! I talk to Summer Rayne about how it all began, how to keep maidenhair ferns alive, the cool things you can grow in a vivarium, and why chickens and Calatheas don't mix in this week's show.…

The Maranta group, aka the prayer plants, all share an incredible plant superpower: they can open and shut their leaves. They're also one of THE houseplants of the moment, because they all have intricately patterned leaves that the current generation of houseplant fans just love. This is my rundown of the four clans of Maranta, plus I answer a ...…

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